A place for librarians to get and share information, ideas and inspiration about serving youth of all ages--and their caregivers. Especially for librarians in west-central Wisconsin's Indianhead Federated Library System.

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Welcome to this latest attempt to connect librarians from west-central Wisconsin with each other! Please send in content (booklists, ideas, photos, etc.), and comment on posts so we can help each other.If you were using feedmyinbox to get new posts sent to you before, you'll need to switch to another service (blogtrottr works like feedmyinbox, googlereader is a good blog-reader to try).

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Friday, April 17, 2015

I attended a conference put on by the Eau Claire Brain Team yesterday, and one of the sessions was about ACEs--Adverse Childhood Experiences--and the long-term health effects ACEs can have. But also about ways to help mitigate their effects by helping children and teens develop resiliency. Powerful stuff, and I believe that libraries--and librarians--have a role to play in this. I think most of us would agree about the positive difference a relationship with a caring librarian can make, or having a safe place like the library to go --we've all heard stories that attest to that.

I was super-excited when the presenter suggested a list of people and organizations that are excellent partners for informing people about ACEs, preventing them, and helping children develop resiliency once they have occurred. Guess what organization TOPPED THE LIST? Libraries. How cool is that?! It was heartening to have libraries recognized and advocated-for as partners in this important work. We have a place at the table for discussions about this, and they are important topics for our communities.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

I was reminded again today of the grace of librarians. In Eau Claire every April, there is a monumental effort on the part of schools and the library to have every first grade class from every school visit the library. This is a tremendous project under any circumstances, an all-hands-on-deck sort of affair. The tours started today, and last night Alisha found out that every other person in her department was going to be out (a perfect storm of illness, appointments, jury duty and vacation).

Rather than panic, she lined up the resources she had (staff from other departments came to help kids find materials at the end, and helped direct traffic during the storm of check-outs; a person whose day off it was came in to help; and I came, too). She changed her plan for what would happen during the day. And she rolled with it. Pretty impressive, and I know it is something that all of you do regularly! Plans B, C, and D are all in a day's work!

I had my own run-in with winging it. I managed to mess up the machinery for showing a video about the back-end of the library, and while someone from the library valiantly tried to fix it, I pulled out a few tricks from my back pocket to keep the kids busy. But I wished I had more up my sleeve! I realize that 10 years away from direct service leaves me a little slower on the uptake with the snappy games and rhymes that will keep a group of kids focused and happy. And I was a little wistful, but also grateful to have a chance to think on my feet in a way that nothing like a roomful of squirrelly first-graders will require.